david s. bernstein

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Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s credentials, support, and savvy make her almost untouchable — and she knows it. Elizabeth Warren was the only senator on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, aside from the chair and ranking minority, to show up at last Thursday's hearing on indexing the minimum wage to inflation.

Talking Politics It's no surprise that the coming weekend's Saint Patrick's Day celebrations have become politically charged, given the extraordinary convergence of electoral events visiting South Boston.

A huge year in politics could see the next generation of South Boston political legends emerge — or get swept aside. Twenty years since a Hyde Park Italian-American succeeded Ray Flynn, South Boston retains its public perception as the city's nexus of political power.

Congressman Ed Markey's announcement that he will run in the upcoming special election for US Senate was quickly followed by a choreographed show of institutional backing, from Vicki Kennedy, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and even John Kerry, holder of the soon-to-be-vacated seat Markey desires.

Talking Politics As word circulated on Thursday, December 13, that Susan Rice was withdrawing her name from consideration for secretary of state, it was like a 2013 starting gun going off in Massachusetts.

Talking Politics I take the blackout as a sign that the universe wants these smart and savvy yet secluded and out-of-touch campaign elites to hold their tongues — and learn some lessons from what ordinary people have been trying, collectively, to tell them: that voters know more about the country's mood than the campaign strategists do.

The fire this time On LGBT rights, civil liberties, economic inequity, immigration, criminal justice, labor organizing, money in politics, and voting rights, the Obama administration let progressives down time and time again. And who's to say Obama's second term won't be the same as the first?

The vote totals that poured in through the state secretary's office November 6 provided one set of winners (Elizabeth Warren, John Tierney, Joe Kennedy III, medical marijuana) and losers (Scott Brown, Richard Tisei, medical suicide). But there were plenty of other victories and defeats in Bay State politics last Tuesday.

As I write this column, a campaign-weary Commonwealth awaits the end of a year-long, roughly $80 million Senate race that seems to have been on the front pages — and in every commercial break — for as long as we can remember.